Everyone knows that Staying in Touch is a critical component of a Sphere of Influence (SOI) approach to running a successful real estate business. Of course, everyone has a different opinion of exactly what "staying in touch" entails - what, specifically, to do, how often to do it and how on earth to REMEMBER to do it that often!

I am of the opinion that Staying in Touch should be Simple. Not fancy, not complicated, not overwhelming for either party - neither the Stay in TouchER nor the Stay in TouchEE. No need to remind someone of your existence every 35 seconds (or even every few weeks) - if you are that unmemorable, you have bigger problems than making sure you Stay in Touch!

But that's a topic for a different day. Today's topic is about using a real estate-specific contact management system to help you Stay in Touch with the Very Important People Who Know You. Not DO your Staying in Touch FOR you, but rather help you remember to do it yourself!

So without further adooooo... here are the first three of the Ten Simple Ways to Use Your Contact Management System to Stay in Touch...

Simple Way 1:Track birthdays and anniversaries and use your contact manager to set up reminders to give you plenty of time to acknowledge the special day. Be creative with anniversaries - not just a "Happy One Year in Your Home" card, but rather use the anniversary as a reminder to make contact. Perhaps call, text or email something like: "Hey, guess what we were doing one year ago today?!" and suggest getting together for a drink to celebrate.

Also consider tracking "sad" anniversaries for your closer friends - the death of a parent, a pet or some other life event where your reaching out to comfort your friend would be appreciated. This may sound a bit morbid, but I always say that good contact management actually helps you to be a better friend. Everyone WANTS to be there for their friends, but our own lives get in the way and we forget...

Simple Way 2: Use your contact manager to remind you to connect with everyone in your "Group One" (defined as anyone you'd enjoy having coffee with). Make it your goal to have a personal interaction with your Group One once a quarter. "Personal interaction" means a face-to-face, voice-to-voice or at the very least email-to-email. Print out a list of your Group One and go through it every Monday, reaching out to the people on the list who inspire you to connect that week. Maybe 2-3 per week. Suggest coffee, happy hour, a walk in the park. Do it again next week. And the next. At the end of the quarter, you should have made contact with all your Group One's and can all start over!

Simple Way 3:Related to Simple Way 2, after you've made contact with your Group One's, think of something you talked about that you can follow-up on afterwards to "see how it went." Add it to the task list in your contact management system with the date to do your following-up. For example, perhaps your friend told you her husband was having a medical procedure on Friday. Call on Monday to check in. Maybe your friend is going on vacation next week. Call afterwards to see if he had fun. Did your friend get a new puppy? Email in a few days and ask for pictures!

These are things you really mean to do, but using your contact manager to help you remember to do it ensures that it does get done!

Staying in touch is invaluable to any business, yet, I'm as guilty as perhaps most that failed to continue sending out my newsletters. I need to reorganize and get an assistant to manage that and other tasks that I don't have time to do.